


The Riots of 4th and 3rd

by amyanomaly



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dystopia, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Riots, World War III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 10:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1466338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyanomaly/pseuds/amyanomaly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie's just trying to protect her younger brother and make it to see the next day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Riots of 4th and 3rd

In the middle of the empty lot, a sea of candles light up somber faces. The lot is completely quiet, but occasionally a distant scream will break the silence. Jamie watches the flame of her candle flicker in the breeze for a moment, before looking over at her brother.

Trevor’s only thirteen years old, but he’s already as tall as Jamie. He stares blankly ahead, not focusing on anything in particular. Jamie switches the candle into her other hand and reaches down to hold Trevor’s. He glances over at her and blinks the wetness away from his eyes. Trevor shuffles closer to her and squeezes her hand tight.

“I miss him,” Trevor whispers.

“I know you do,” Jamie says. She can’t feed him the lines everyone else has been all day. There’s no way she can say ‘he’s in a better place’ without knowing for sure.

“Amir was a good kid,” a woman says on the other side of Trevor. Jamie doesn’t recognize her, but Trevor gives her a small smile and nods.

“He did what we all wanted to do,” someone says, but Jamie can’t see his face.

Jamie nods to herself and looks straight ahead again. Amir was only fifteen years old when he died, in a cot at the aid station. There was nothing the doctors and nurses could do for him. He was so badly beaten, Jamie heard from a nurse, that no one recognized him at first.

Someone steps towards the front of the lot, where they passed out the candles and lighters. There are no signs set up or photos of Amir, but everyone knows who the memorial is for. It’s illegal or maybe just frowned upon, to hold a memorial for someone who disobeyed the police.

“We all know why we’re here,” the man says. His candle lights up a tan, weathered face. He looks a bit older than Jamie’s father. “Amir was—”

“Five oh!” Someone shouts. Candles are snuffed out and dropped on the ground as everyone scatters. Jamie drops her smoking candle on the ground and drags Trevor out of the lot. They start to run, shoving past a slower moving group, and Jamie holds tight to Trevor’s hand. She leads them into an alley, sneakers crunching broken glass. Grabbing onto an old light pole, Jamie swings them around the corner of the building and down the dirt road. They run all the way down it, kicking up dirt. Trevor starts to slow as they enter another empty lot, but this one was full of homeless people.

Crossing the lot quickly, neither starts to run again. No one’s following them and running on the main street would only draw more attention. Trevor leads them down the main street and Jamie keeps her eyes peeled for anyone in a uniform. This street was relatively empty, but sure enough, a group of police officers round the next corner. Before they can notice Jamie and Trevor, Jamie pulls them behind the corner store and ducks behind the empty dumpster. She presses her back against the brick and Trevor does the same beside her. Dropping his hand, she lets out a long breath.

“Yeah,” Trevor says. He chuckles once and nudges his shoulder against hers. “You tired? You gotta stay in shape, J.”

“Shut up,” Jamie tells him. She slides down the wall a few inches and looks up at Trevor. In the moonlight, his pale skin looks even lighter and his freckles are washed out. He runs his hand through his red hair and grins down at his sister.

“You think we’re good?” Trevor asks after a few silent moments.

“Yeah, let’s go.” She stands up again and ushers him out from behind the dumpster. They stand close, side by side, but Jamie doesn’t reach for his hand again.

A few blocks pass in complete silence until they reach the one they live on.

“They shouldn’t have killed Amir,” Trevor says, lips pressed in a thin line. Jamie knows he’s angry; they all are. She grabs his shoulder and pushes him up the stairs to their apartment.

“Get inside, Trevor,” she orders, watching as a group dressed in black starts walking down the street. She shoves him inside and locks the door before she can see if the people are police or not.

*

Trevor wakes Jamie up the next morning by yanking off her blankets. She shivers and rolls over, pressing her face into the pillow.

“Some of us have to go to school, Jamie,” Trevor tells her, entirely too loud and too close to her ear. She groans. “Fine, I’ll go by myself. But the riots have spread to our street today.”

Jamie sits up quickly, causing Trevor lose his balance and fall backwards against the bed. “No, no, I’ll take you. But, uh, give me a couple minutes.”

“Someone made coffee,” Trevor whispers. He sits up and looks at her, worry filling his eyes.

“Don’t… don’t drink it.” She pulls a sweatshirt from the chair next to her bed and sniffs it. It smells clean, so she pulls it over her head. “Just in case. I don’t—”

“I know,” Trevor says. He nods. “They’re contagious and it’s not alienating them if we’re only protecting ourselves. Even if it feels like it.”

Jamie takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. She watches Trevor pull a thread from her blanket and wrap it tight around his finger. He lets the tip turn purple before letting the thread go. “I’m sorry, Trevor. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. Mom and Dad love you so much. They want the best for you.”

“But they’re sick. So the best is never seeing them,” Trevor mutters, not meeting Jamie’s eyes.

“Come on you little ginger. We have to get going,” Jamie teases him, ruffling his hair. They both stand at the same time and Jamie hates that he’s the same height as her.

“If I’m a little ginger, then what are you? A midget ginger?” He grins and ducks out of the room before Jamie can grab him.

She rolls her eyes and finishes getting dressed before leaving the room. Trevor is sitting in the small living room, backpack next to him, when she comes out of the bathroom with her teeth and hair brushed.

“You okay?” She asks. Sometimes Jamie remembers her life before all of this happened, and she knows that Trevor’s too young to remember a time of peace. She doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that he doesn’t remember.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They leave out the back window and climb down the fire escape so the crowds outside don’t know that someone lives in this building. The riots aren’t about looting usually, but sometimes the people who are protesting are so desperate for food or money that they break into occupied houses.

Jamie hopes that when they get home today, nothing will be missing.

*

The school was once just the high school, but now that so little children can even make it out of their homes, all the grades have been compiled into the same building. Most of the older kids don’t have older siblings or parents walking them to school, but today, Jamie sees more adults than she ever has in the schoolyard.

Everyone’s nervous after Amir’s death.

At the gate, Jamie pulls Trevor into a hug and he doesn’t protest like normal.

“Be safe,” Trevor orders, holding onto her shoulders.

“That’s my line,” Jamie jokes weakly.

“I’m in school all day behind a locked gate. I’ll be fine. You on the other hand,” he trails off.

“Don’t worry about me,” Jamie says. She pulls him into another hug before he can turn away. “Have a good day.”

“You too.”

She watches her brother join a group of kids before going into the building. The man by the gate waits until all the parents and older siblings step out of the yard before closing the gate and locking it.

Jamie hitches her backpack higher up on her shoulder and braces herself for the riots happening on the next street. Most of the parents go their separate ways at the end of the block, finding empty alleyways and streets to cut through. One of the siblings Jamie’s seen around before walks by her side towards the mass of people. It’s the only way she can get to the businesses on the other side.

“You sure you want to go through this?” The guy says, looking down at Jamie. He’s got more than half a foot on her.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jamie states. She’s done this for over a year now. She knows how to use her size against the rioters.

She jogs over to the group of rioters. They’re screaming at the police who are shoving them backwards, away from the businesses. Jamie pushes in between two women and barrels through anyone standing in her way. She catches people in the ribs with her elbows, forcing them to let her through.

Someone grabs onto her backpack, but Jamie leans forward, using all of her weight to get free. She pushes through the wall of people and takes a few stumbling steps on the less crowded street.

Jamie takes a deep breath and nods slightly as she catches the eye of the guy from the school. He shoves a bigger man away from him and instead of breaking away from the riot, he joins in. Jamie shrugs. Some people got sucked into the whole thing. Jamie normally just ignores everything. She shuts out the screaming, she doesn’t look at the signs, and she avoids looking the police in the eye.

It’s the only way to push through the riots without getting sucked into the cause.

*

The police are brutal.

Jamie didn’t realize just how brutal until she steps into the medical station. The hospital was bombed during the war and there was never any plans to rebuild it. The medical station popped up even before the war ended, in the large ice skating rink. Jamie pulls open the door and steps over to the side, where the secretary’s desk is. The two women sitting behind it look up as she places her hands on the counter.

She smiles and says, “I’d like to help.”

The woman to the left nods. Her curly brown hair is pulled away from her face and her nails are trimmed short. “Do you know how to give stitches?”

Jamie nods. “And I know how to set broken fingers and disinfect cuts and remove gravel from scrapes.”

The woman on the left looks to the other woman. She presses her pencil against a piece of paper and says, “Do you have papers?”

Jamie swings her backpack around in front of her and pulls out the papers declaring her a legal citizen without any trace of sickness. She unfolds the rumpled paper and passes it over.

“Well,” the woman says after reading over the information. She clicks her tongue and glances to the woman on the left. “You’re the best that’s walked in here so far. We just lost two nurses to the quarantines.”

“Oh,” Jamie replies. She shifts between her feet, not knowing what to say.

“Jamie Darcy,” the woman reads off the papers before handing them back over. “Welcome to the team. Lucy, if you would get her an armband.”

Lucy, the woman with the brown curly hair, smiles and stands up from the desk and opens a cabinet in the back. She pulls out a canvas armband with a red cross printed on it. She hands it over to Jamie and says, “Left arm, please.”

Jamie puts the armband around her bicep and fastens the button on the back with one hand. She tugs it up a little higher and smiles at the women behind the counter.

“Everyone’s getting paid in food stamps right now,” Lucy tells her. “We’re not sure when it’ll be back to normal pay.”

“That’s—” It’s not exactly what Jamie wanted. She needs to pay the rent for their apartment. She’s got half of it from her parents’ savings account, but she has barely enough of her own money to pay for food. “That’s okay.”

“I’ll help you get started,” the other woman says. She stands up and walks around the desk. “My name’s Clarissa.”

Jamie smiles at her and follows Clarissa into the entrance for the home team, between the stadium seats. The skylights on the top of the rink let in the sunlight, with a few artificial lights set up. Clarissa leads them past the first row of cots. Only a few have people sitting or lying on them, waiting for the nurses to make their rounds.

“Each nurse takes a certain number of cots,” Clarissa explains. “You’ll get these ten nearest the away team bench. We’ll expect you here at eight am until as long as you can stay. We’ve got some other nurses working the night shifts. Extra supplies are in the home team’s locker room as well as the sinks to wash up in.”

“Okay.”

“Any questions?” Clarissa asks. She turns to look at Jamie.

“The only thing is I have to get my younger brother from school. He gets out at two-thirty and he can wait for a little while, but not too long because he’ll decide he shouldn’t wait for me anymore,” Jamie explains.

“Of course you can go get him. He can stay up in the stands until you’re done,” Clarissa states. She nods towards home team entrance. Jamie turns around to look and sees a man clutching at his arm, stumbling up the slight incline. “You’ve got your first patient.”

As Clarissa walks off to talk to another nurse, Jamie jogs across the rink towards the man. His jacket is torn down to his wrist and his dark skin is tacky with blood. He looks at her, confused.

“You don’t normally work here,” he tells her. “I know all the nurses.”

“I’m new. My name’s Jamie. Why don’t you follow me?”

*

Jamie pulls off the latex gloves and glances up at the clock. It’s 2:25. The woman sitting on the cot looks at her fingers, bending each knuckle. Jamie watches her pale, thin fingers flex and says, “I have to leave now. Is that all that was wrong? Just your knuckles?”

“Yeah,” she says. She smiles at Jamie. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jamie replies. The woman climbs off the cot and heads back towards the entrance. Jamie drops the gloves into the trash can and wanders over to Lucy. The little boy on her cot is crying, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks. Lucy works a sling over his shoulder.

“Don’t cry, sweetie,” Lucy tells the boy. She pats his cheek and turns towards her cart of supplies. She notices Jamie and smiles.

“Uh, I have to go get my brother from school. I told Clarissa about it earlier?”

“Yeah, of course,” she answers. She nods at Jamie. “Go on. Be quick though.”

Jamie doubles back to her cart and grabs her backpack before making her way to the home team tunnel. She waves slightly at Clarissa, who looks up from her paperwork.

Outside, Jamie walks quickly, sneakers echoing on the pavement. The street’s fairly empty for this time of day. Halfway to the school, Jamie hears a vehicle driving past and sees the stark white van with red letters painted across the side reading medical police in capital letters.

Jamie shivers as the van speeds by, blowing through the stop sign at the end of the block. There aren’t any sirens on the top, there hasn’t been since they started covering up the word ambulance and replacing it with medical police, but the drivers always ignore the speed limit.

She wonders who’s in the van for a few moments as she watches the van get smaller and smaller before it disappears around a corner.

*

Trevor’s leaning against the gate when Jamie ambles up. She smiles and pulls Trevor into a hug by the strap of his backpack. He lets her hold onto him for a second before pulling back. “What’s up with the red cross?”

“I got a job,” Jamie informs him. She grins. “I’m a nurse now. It pays in food stamps, but that’s better than nothing.”

“Hell yeah it is,” Trevor says, nudging her in the ribs with his elbow. They start walking back towards the ice skating rink.

“Don’t curse,” she reprimands him, but honestly, she doesn’t really care.

Trevor rolls his eyes. “Hey, did you have Mrs. Lindsay when you were in school?”

“Yeah, I think so. She has really long black hair, right?” Jamie asks.

“Yeah,” Trevor nods. “She told a story about you today.”

Jamie’s eyes widen. She didn’t think any of her old teachers would remember her, besides the ones she got on the bad side of.

“Yeah so Mrs. Lindsay told this story about how there was this smaller kid getting picked on and bullied when you were in her class. And you stood up for the kid because you were small too and you didn’t think it was fair he got picked on for something he couldn’t help,” Trevor explains. “She told us because there’s this group of kids who bully anyone who doesn’t have friends around them all the time.”

Jamie nods and thinks back to the seventh grade. The war had been over for two years already, but most adults still hated the invading countries. She remembers hearing on the radio that everyone with any relations to those countries had been put into internment camps, but no one had been able to prove it.

“He wasn’t getting picked on because he was small. He was picked on because he was from one of the enemy countries. His family fled as soon as the war started, but they didn’t speak English at home so he had an accent still,” Jamie says. She shakes her head slightly. “He was getting beat up nearly every day. And not just by other thirteen year olds. There were older kids too, from the high school and even some adults.”

“Just because he wasn’t American?” Trevor questions.

Jamie nods. “The police wouldn’t do anything about it.”

“Kind of like with what happened to Amir,” he mumbles. Jamie puts her arm over Trevor’s shoulder and pulls him towards her, half hugging him.

“The police try to keep us in line,” she reminds him. She doesn’t meet Trevor’s eyes. “They sometimes need to use force.”

“Do you really—” Trevor cuts himself off. A few feet behind them are two men dressed in riot gear. Jamie didn’t turn around to see them, but she could hear the steel toes of their old boots rubbing against the concrete.

“Okay,” Trevor says.

The police officers follow behind them all the way to the ice skating rink. Jamie pushes Trevor through the doors, pretending she needs to stop to tie her shoe. She kneels down outside the entrance, angled to the side so the red cross on her armband is visible to the officers. Jamie untangles the not from her sneakers and slowly ties it back into a neater knot. She tucks the laces into her shoe and glances up towards the police officers.

They stand on the corner, not too far away, but far away enough that Jamie isn’t called out for staring at their faces. She wipes her hands on her jeans and commits the faces to memory as best as she can.

*

At the end of the night, Jamie feels like she’s dead on her feet. She’s starving, but she hadn’t had a chance to take a break. Once the sun goes down, the flow of people coming into the medical station raises.

“You did good today,” one of the other nurses says. She’s tall and willowy, with dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

“Thank you,” Jamie says.

“I’m Nina,” she says.

“Jamie.”

Nina holds out her hand for Jamie to shake. “Where’d you learn to give stitches?”

“My mom was a nurse,” Jamie tells her. “She taught me and my brother the basics.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Nina says. “I was studying to be a nurse before my college closed.”

“Well, now you don’t have student debt,” Jamie tries to joke.

Nina laughs. Jamie must look as tired as she feels because Nina says, “Go home and rest, Jamie. You’ll need it.”

Jamie nods. “Yeah, you too.”

From the stadium seats, Trevor comes bounding over, stuffing a notebook back into his bag. “You ready to go, J?”

“Yeah, come on, kid,” she says. She turns back to Nina and says, “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“For sure.”

Jamie grabs her backpack and Trevor immediately takes it from her. Normally Jamie would protest, but all she wants to do is crawl into bed. “Thanks.”

“You look really tired,” Trevor tells her.

“See Clarissa on your way out, Jamie!” Lucy shouts from the other side of the rink.

Lazily, Jamie salutes her and leads Trevor down the tunnel to the front of the building. Behind the desk, Clarissa is counting out pieces of brightly colored paper that Jamie recognizes to be food stamps. One of the other nurses is already standing in front of the desk, so Jamie takes a place in line behind him.

“See you tomorrow, David,” Clarissa says as the man walks out the door. She smiles at Jamie. She hands over a stack of stamps to Jamie. “You get paid day by day here. We know everyone’s just trying to make it to the next day.”

“Thanks,” Jamie says. She puts the food stamps in an inside pocket of her backpack. She’ll count it at home; she doesn’t need to be disappointed in front of Trevor and her new boss.

*

Jamie takes a detour past the grocery store on their way home. Trevor stays outside the store, talking to a girl with an afro that looks around his age. She smiles at Jamie, but doesn’t say anything to her.

“I’ll be a few minutes,” Jamie tells her brother.

Inside the store, Jamie walks straight towards the bread aisle. She picks up a bag of the cheapest bread that looks fresh and holds it under her arm. She pulls the food stamps from her backpack and starts to count the colored paper.

There’s only fifty dollars. It’s less than five dollars for every hour she worked. Jamie shoves the paper in her pocket and grits her teeth.

It’s better than nothing, she tries to tell herself. At the beginning of the day, she didn’t have fifty dollars to buy food with. She grabs a basket at the end of the bread aisle and drops the loaf into it. Jamie walks around to the edge of the store, where the cold items are stored. She grabs a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs.

For now, that will hold them over for dinner and breakfast. Jamie knows they still have peanut butter in the pantry and Trevor can make them peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Jamie walks towards the registers, joining the short line.

It’s dark outside, after nine pm, and Jamie knows that most people don’t really go food shopping at this time of night anymore.

The woman behind the register smiles at Jamie, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. She looks just as tired as Jamie is. Jamie places the basket on the counter and watches as the cashier scans each item. The total comes to just under ten dollars.

The cashier hands her forty-seven cents in return. Jamie drops them into her pocket.

“Have a good night,” the woman says.

“You too,” Jamie replies. She grabs her plastic bag and holds it carefully, not wanting to jostle the eggs too much.

At the front of the store, Trevor’s standing alone with a piece of paper in his hand. It’s too dark for Jamie to read from this far away, but Trevor folds it up and stuffs it in his backpack before she can see the title at the top.

“What...” Jamie starts. She shakes her head. Trevor’s entitled to his secrets. “Ready to go?”

“Of course,” Trevor says and takes the bag from her hand.

*

When a house is raided by the medical police, they leave a black X on the door in tape. Jamie’s seen them on people’s doors before, she’s seen them on family member’s houses before, but she never expected to see one on her own front door.

Jamie stands in the middle of the stairs, feet on different levels as she stares at the door. She can hear Trevor breathing heavy behind her. Any second now and he might be crying.

“Don’t cry,” Jamie tells him sternly. She can’t turn around to look at him. If she does, she might start sobbing herself.

“They’ll be dead by morning, Jamie!” Trevor shouts. Before he can run down the stairs and away from her, he places the bag of groceries on the step carefully. Jamie spins around to watch him stumble down the stairs and grab the railing. He leans over the side and takes a deep breath. It’s loud in the silent night.

He breathes out raggedly and Jamie blinks away her tears. Trevor presses his head against the railing for a few moments before crumbling to the ground. His arms come up to wrap around his legs and Jamie rushes towards him. She misses the last step and falls to the ground, bruising her knees.

Jamie reaches out to her brother and he shifts to press his head against her shoulder. Jamie presses a hand to the back of his head and says, “They were sick. They’ll be... This was for the best.”

“Don’t try to pull that shit with me, Jamie!” Trevor yells, pulling back to look her in the eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says. “I’m so mad. I can’t. This is the worst thing to happen and I know they’re not in a better place. I’m trying to be strong for you because I don’t want you to be as mad as I am right now.”

“Too late for that,” Trevor says. He gives her a small smile. “We already knew I was a fiery red head.”

Jamie rolls her eyes. It’s something their father would always tell them and it used to annoy Jamie to no end. Now it just makes her a little sad.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Jamie tells him. “And I mean it.”

“I should say the same to you.”

Jamie shrugs and stands up. “Come on, kid. Let’s get to sleep. I’m tired.”

She helps Trevor stand up and he grabs the groceries from the steps. Jamie pushes open the front door and yanks the black tape down. She rolls it up into a ball and tosses it over the railing of the stairs, into the street.

Inside the apartment, the couch is pushed back against the wall and the stack of books sitting outside their parents’ bedroom is knocked over. Trevor puts the groceries away and starts to make them dinner when Jamie slowly pushes open the bedroom door. Everything inside the room is gone. All that’s left is the metal frame the bed was sitting in and a pair of boots in the corner.

Someone told her that they took everything out of the rooms of the infected people, but she hadn’t believed it. It seemed unnecessary and time-consuming for them to empty the rooms. Jamie stares at the empty walls and touches the nail where a picture frame had been hanging.

“They even took the photos,” Jamie mumbles.

Trevor doesn’t hear her. Jamie walks out of the room and repeats herself.  Trevor frowns around the piece of bread hanging from his mouth.

“I took one of the photos from their room the other day,” Trevor tells her. “It’s under my pillow. It’s the one with all of us before the plague started. There’s only that one and the one of the two of us last year.”

“Oh,” Jamie says. “Did you wear a mask when you went in there?”

Trevor nods. He turns back to the kitchen counter and holds out a peanut butter sandwich to her. He grabs two glasses from the cabinet and pours milk for them both. They sit on the couch in the living room without moving it back in place. They eat in silence and Jamie nudges Trevor’s thigh with her foot to get his attention a few minutes later.

“Don’t be sad about it,” Jamie tells him. “They were really sick. It was a matter of time.”

Trevor nods and takes a long drink of milk. He brushes the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping away the milk from his upper lip. “I know it was a matter of time. But they’re our parents. We didn’t even get to say goodbye and we don’t get to ever see them again. We don’t even get to not drink the coffee they made or hear them coughing in the middle of the night.”

*

“You okay?” Nina asks the next day when Jamie walks into the ice skating rink.

“The Doctors came for my parents yesterday,” Jamie tells her. She wants to tell her about seeing the black X on her door, the mark of death, the mark that someone has been taken from you. But she doesn’t want them to know she had been living with sick people. Even if she tried to explain that they were completely cut off from her and Trevor, no one would believe her. She’d be out of a job so quick.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Nina says, frowning. She pats Jamie on the shoulder. “When my mom got sick and they came to take her away, I just threw myself into work. I don’t know if that’ll work for you, but it kept my mind off things.”

Jamie nods. “I told Trevor we would check the list after work tonight. I’m not sure if it’ll be a bad thing or not.”

“He’s young, but he knows what this world is like. He never lived in a different one,” Nina tells her.

“I don’t want this life for him.”

*

Later in the week, the man with the dark skin comes in again. Jamie finishes putting a clean bandage on a teenager’s stitches when he calls out to her. “Hey, Jamie.”

“You here for me to take out those stitches?” She asks, peeling off the gloves and tossing them in the garbage can nearby. She looks back at the teenager and says, “You’re good to go. Keep those stitches clean and you can come back in about two weeks to get them taken out.”

The teenager nods and slides off the cot. Jamie grabs another pair of gloves from the box and pulls them on. She walks over to the man who was her first patient and smiles at him. He sits down on the cot and looks down at her.

“My name’s Eddie,” he tells her.

“Hi, Eddie.” Jamie looks him over, trying to find where he’s hurt.

“It’s the stitches. They got ripped out,” Eddie explains. He gingerly shrugs off his sweatshirt and holds his arm out to show Jamie the blood soaked bandage.

“This is awful,” she comments, grimacing. Before pulling off the bandage, she kicks the garbage can closer to Eddie’s cot.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, shrugging. “Oh shit.”

“Don’t do that,” Jamie orders. She takes a step closer to him and pulls on the edge of the bandage. She knows from experience that the bandage is most likely stuck to Eddie’s arm and pulling it off will hurt. She hopes it hasn’t already started to scab. “So why do you keep getting hurt?”

“From the riots,” Eddie tells her, arching an eyebrow.

“I mean how.”

Eddie shrugs his other shoulder as Jamie peels back the top edge of the bandage. He winces slightly. “Everyone’s kind of reckless. No one’s really paying attention and shit happens.”

“Why keep joining the crowd when you’re already hurt?”

“Because they need to know we’re not happy. They need to know we’re angry and we’re not going to let it slide,” Eddie explains. “I don’t want to sit around and wait for someone else to get the bright idea that the government is screwing us over. Who knows how long we’ll be waiting if we leave it up to one person.”

Jamie nods, not sure what to say to him. She manages to work the bandage off with Eddie only wincing a little and swearing once. She tosses it in the trash, wrinkling her nose.

“Are you against all the rioting?” Eddie asks. Jamie reaches over to get the disinfectant and Eddie wraps his fingers around her wrist. He doesn’t squeeze or yank her hand away, just holds it in place to grab her attention. Jamie looks up at him.

“No,” Jamie admits. “I’m not against it at all. I think they made my parents sick when they voted against the president at the last election. I think what you guys are trying to do is brave. I’m just trying to live. I have a little brother and I can’t leave him alone in this world.”

“I have a younger sister. She’s fourteen,” he says. He gives her a small smile. “She’s the hottest headed eighth grader I know.”

Jamie laughs. “Sounds like my brother. He’s a fiery little redhead.”

“And you aren’t?” Eddie asks, smirking.

She rolls her eyes. “Are you calling me little because I’m about to shove a needle into your arm.”

“Your bedside manner is terrible,” Eddie tells her, voice light.

“Shut it.” Jamie grabs the needle from her tray and opens the plastic wrapper.

She points it at him threateningly until he says, “Okay. I get it. You’re not little.”

“Damn right,” Jamie mutters under her breath. It startles a loud laugh out of Eddie. “Okay, now hold still.”

*

“Stop fidgeting,” Jamie says, grabbing Trevor by the shoulders. She pushes against him until his back is flush against the chair. She picks up the scissors from the table and opens them up. She snaps them closed in front of Trevor’s face and says, “Pay attention. Don’t slump. I’m not the best at this and I don’t want to cut your ear off.”

Trevor rolls his brown eyes.

“Can’t I just shave your head? It’d be so much easier,” Jamie asks, looking towards the bathroom where the clippers sit in the closet.

“No!” Trevor exclaims and grabs her wrist. “Just trim my hair, _please_.”

Jamie combs through Trevor’s hair, holding a section of it up and cuts an inch off the length. She hopes he looks normal when she’s through. She’s cut Trevor’s hair before, but now he actually cares about what he looks like.

“I wish Dad was here,” Jamie comments, not thinking anything of it. She cuts another section of Trevor’s red hair. “He actually knew what he was doing.”

“Well he’s not,” Trevor grumbles and crosses his arms.

“Yeah,” Jamie says shortly. She looks Trevor in the eyes. “I know.”

“Sorry,” he whispers.

Jamie places the scissors on the table and pulls him forward. She wraps her arms around Trevor, hugging him tight against her. She hooks her chin over his shoulder and he presses his face into the fabric of her sweatshirt.

“Did you check the list?”

“No,” Jamie tells him. “I will tomorrow.”

“Can I come with you?”

Jamie pulls back. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I’m not a kid, J.”

She smiles. “I know you’re not. But humor me, okay?”

“Sure,” he responds. They’re both quiet for a moment. “You gonna finish my haircut or what?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sit back. And stay still this time.”

*

Jamie climbs into bed that night two hours after Trevor. Across the room, Trevor lays still in his bed, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She lays there in her bed for a few minutes, trying to find a comfortable position. Jamie sighs. She sits up in bed and pulls the blanket around her shoulders. The room is cold; she let the heat be turned off. Summer is slowly approaching and Jamie wants to save as much money as she can. She’d rather be cold in an apartment then on the street and cold.

She shifts on the bed until her feet are dangling over the edge. She sits there for a few minutes, staring blankly out the window.

Two years ago, Jamie was in high school crushing over a guy in her math class. Two years ago, Trevor was still a kid who played soccer in the empty lot two streets over. Now, crushes and relationships are the farthest thing from Jamie’s mind and Trevor hasn’t picked up his soccer ball in months.

Two years ago, their parents were healthy. Now...

Jamie has to know.

As quietly as she can, Jamie walks across the bedroom and changes into a pair of jeans. She puts on a pair of boots that might be Trevor’s but she doesn’t care. She ties the laces and pulls a sweatshirt over her head.

Jamie grabs her keys from the tray next to the front door and opens the door slowly. It creaks slightly, but not loud enough for Trevor to wake up. Jamie locks it behind herself and tucks the keys into her pocket.

She runs down the stairs, grabbing onto the metal pole at the bottom and swings herself to the left. Her footsteps echo down the street as she runs towards the church.

*

Trevor wakes Jamie up by throwing a pillow at her face.

“Where’d you go last night?”

Jamie blinks and stares up at him. “What?”

“My boots are muddy and they definitely weren’t when I came home yesterday. So where did you go?”

“I checked the list.”

“And?” Trevor pushes.

“Dad’s name was on there. Mom’s wasn’t.”

Trevor’s shoulders slump. He clenches his fists and says, stiffly, “Okay.”

“Trevor, don’t—”

Trevor turns away from her and gets dressed for school. Jamie leaves him to it and gets in the shower. She’s not in the bathroom for more than fifteen minutes, but when she walks out, Trevor’s gone.

“Trevor?” She calls out, drying her hair with a towel. His backpack and boots are gone. In the kitchen, he left Jamie a sandwich in a paper bag and a cup of coffee.

Jamie throws her towel on one of the kitchen chairs and glares at the paper bag.

*

After school, Trevor leans against the gate, staring at his boots. Jamie quickens her pace and grabs him by the shoulders. She grabs him by the chin, forcing him to look at her.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Trevor mumbles.

“What was that?” Jamie asks, dropping her hand from his chin. He looks back down at his shoes and repeats himself. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I won’t do that ever again,” Trevor forces out, looking directly at her. “I’m angry, Jamie. Don’t you get that?”

“And what? You think I’m not? I’m furious, Trevor. I want to punch someone in the face. I’m so angry,” Jamie tells him. Her fingernails are digging into her palms.

“Real eloquent,” Trevor teases.

Jamie glares at him. “Shut up.”

She grabs him by the arm and drags him away from the gate. They walk side by side down the street. “There’s this article.”

“Okay.” Jamie’s about to tune him out.

“It’s an article about Amir Issa.”

Jamie glances at him with wide eyes. “That can’t be in the normal newspaper.”

“No,” Trevor admits. “It’s an underground paper. The person who wrote it told the whole story behind Amir’s death. They even mention the police officers by name.”

“The ones who took him to the medical station?”

Trevor shakes his head. “No, the ones who beat him.”

“Oh,” Jamie says. “Oh, shit.”

“I’m making copies of them,” Trevor tells her quietly. “I’m going to pass them out. Amir’s story needs to be known. People have to know what the police are really like.”

“That’s not a good idea.” Jamie looks at him. He’s been forced to grow up past his years. “But I won’t stop you.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I have to do this for Amir. He was my best friend.”

She nods. “Do what you have to. Just don’t get caught.”

*

A police officer walks into the rink. The entire floor goes silent; the nurses pause with needles poised in the air and the crying of one twelve year old stops. Jamie pauses behind the officer in the home team’s tunnel. The sleeve of the police officer’s shirt is torn and his elbow has pieces of gravel embedded in the skin.

Jamie doesn’t feel bad for him. Not at all, but none of the other nurses move to take him to their section of cots. She takes a deep breath and continues pushing her supply cart up the ramp.

“Come on,” Jamie mutters as she passes by him. “Follow me.”

The man pulls himself up to sit on the cot and pulls his helmet off. His blonde hair is sweaty and mussed. If he was a different person, Jamie might have found him attractive. As he is, though, Jamie picks apart his appearance. His eyes are too close together and his nose is crooked like it was broken and never healed right.

“Roll up your sleeve some more,” Jamie tells him. She turns away from him, not wanting to see the look in his eyes. She doesn’t think he can tell how much she hates police officers, but there’s a part of her that thinks she might give herself away if she meets his gaze.

She grabs the tweezers and starts to pull the gravel from his elbow. He winces as she lets the metal ends of the tweezers graze the open cuts. She doesn’t care.

“Hey,” the man says and grabs her wrist. He doesn’t grip it tight, but Jamie jerks her arm back. His hand constricts and Jamie narrows her eyes at him. It takes him a few moments to let her go.

“Just calm down,” he tells her.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Sure, sorry. Just can you be a little gentler? I feel like you’re tearing my elbow up more than it was before,” he explains.

Jamie can’t help it, she rolls her eyes.

“Maybe I’m being a baby,” he says. “But aren’t you a nurse? Isn’t your goal to make me feel better and ease my pain?”

Jamie looks up at him as she grabs the hydrogen peroxide. “I’m not a nurse. I’m just a girl who knows how to stitch up a cut. You know, most of the nurses have died or been taken away because of the plague the government isn’t trying to stop.”

“The government’s trying to stop it. Why would you think they aren’t?”

Jamie pours the disinfectant onto a piece of cotton. She presses it against the police officer’s arm and says as he winces, “If the government was trying to stop it, why are people still getting sick when everyone is taken away and placed into quarantine?”

“Jamie,” someone says behind her. Jamie turns, dropping the cotton into the trash can. Nina stands behind her, concern clear across her face. “You need to calm down.”

“What?” Jamie asks. “How could I calm down? My parents were taken away from me. My brother is a _child_ and he won’t _ever_ see them again.”

“Jamie,” Nina repeats. “Take a deep breath. I’ll handle the police officer.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Jamie says. She turns back to the police officer and stares at him. Before she can stop herself, she reaches out and pushes his helmet onto the ground. The clear plastic mask snaps off of it. Jamie smiles to herself and walks away from the cot.

She takes a few deep breathes before going to the woman sitting in Nina’s section of cots. The woman has a split lip and a black eye. She leans towards Jamie and says, “Don’t let them think they’re right.”

“I would never dream of it,” Jamie tells her and smiles.

*

Trevor wakes up Jamie in the middle of the night, crying. Jamie sits up and listens for a moment. She shuffles around on her bed, wanting Trevor to know she’s awake without speaking.

“It’s too quiet,” Trevor whispers. He chokes on an inhale and Jamie can just make out him pressing his palms to his eyes. “They’re gone. Dad’s dead and mom will be too.”

Jamie climbs out of her bed and sits on the edge of Trevor’s. He sits up and lets her wrap her arms around him. She rubs his back and lets him cry. “We’ll be okay, Trevor. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he murmurs into her shoulder.

“Okay, well how about this? You’ll always have me,” she tells him and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“Always,” Trevor confirms. He hugs her tighter.  

*

Jamie walks Trevor to the schoolyard and stops at the gate. She saw Trevor stuff a stack of papers into his backpack this morning, ones she knows weren’t homework.

“Have a good day,” Trevor tells her. He smiles and holds his arms open. Jamie lets herself be pulled into a hug and grins behind his back. For a while, Trevor hadn’t been very open to giving hugs. Maybe now, Jamie thinks, because his best friend was taken from him he knows how easily either one of them could be taken away.

“Thanks, kid,” Jamie says when they separate. She ruffles his hair. “You too.”

“I’ll see you in a few hours.” Trevor grins and bumps his closed fist against her shoulder.

For some reason, Jamie watches him walk into the school. She normally doesn’t stay that long, but today she waits until someone comes out to close the gate before she leaves.

“You ever feel like you’re never going to see them again?” A woman asks from beside Jamie. She’s a little younger than Jamie’s mom and she holds a baby in her arms.

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “Sometimes.”

The woman nods and looks towards her baby. “I don’t think I’ll be able to let this one out of my sight.”

*

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to get your little brother?” Nina asks. Jamie turns and looks up at the clock. It’s five minutes past when she would normally leave.

“Great,” Jamie mutters. She pulls off her gloves and pitches them into the trash can. “I’ll be back.”

Jamie jogs across the rink and down the tunnel. She waves at Clarissa behind the desk and bursts through the doors, throwing them open. She hesitates, seeing the police walking down the street, but she has no choice but to start running. Maybe they’ll try to stop her, but she doesn’t think they’d be able to catch her.

She turns onto the next street, sneakers too loud on the pavement. A few people watch as she goes by.

On the next street, a crowd of people block the road and sidewalk. They’re screaming, chanting, but Jamie can’t make out the words. She slows down to a fast walk and reaches the edge of the crowd. Jamie tucks her elbows in and starts to push in between two people. They shove at her a little, but she manages to get through and to continue moving.

It takes too long, Jamie thinks. She’s going to be so late. She can’t be late.

An elbow catches Jamie in the stomach, hard. She keels over, one arm wrapped around her stomach as she tries to gasp in air. Her other hand brushes against the concrete. Someone bumps into her from behind and Jamie gasps as she goes falling forward. Her cheek hits the pavement roughly and Jamie can feel the sting of road burn on her face.

She lays there for a moment. By some miracle, no one steps on her fingers. She pushes herself up onto her knees and takes a few seconds before standing upright. Something must be on her side, she thinks, because at that moment the crowd of people and the riot police a few yards away start to disperse. Before that can change, Jamie starts off at a sprint again, trying to keep her breathing steady.

She makes it to the street the school is on when she sees the van. Jamie squints at it and slows slightly. It’s a medical van, but through the open back doors Jamie can see that instead of stretchers and medical equipment, there are two rows along the side for people to sit on.

Jamie’s never seen one of these vans before.  

Movement catches Jamie’s eye at the gate of the school. It’s open and someone is being dragged out of the yard. Two men, dressed in gear similar to that of the riot police, drag the person towards the van. As the person twists around, their hood falls down and reveals bright red hair.

“Trevor!” Jamie screams. Her pace quickens, but she’s too far away. She pushes herself as fast as she can. _“Trevor!”_

“Jamie!” He yells and Jamie can hear the panic in his voice. Trevor jerks in the men’s grips and for a moment, Jamie thinks he’s going to break free.

The men grab Trevor under his arms and lift him into the back of the van. They both climb into the back after him and before the doors are pulled shut, Jamie sees one of the men kick Trevor in the stomach.

“Trevor!” Jamie screams again. She’s just a few feet away now. She reaches out, tries to touch the van, but it rolls forward. Jamie nearly falls face first into the pavement again as the van speeds down the street.

Jamie collapses to the ground and ignores the twinge in her knees. She screams, wordless, and the tears start to fall down her cheeks.

Trevor’s gone.

*


End file.
